Lycoris Radiata
by BHS
Summary: Heartcatch Precure / Madoka Magica. A one-shot drabble, requested by one of my Tumblr friends, that morphed into a full-fledged fanfic. What happens when Sasorina targets a Heart Flower that she should have never, EVER considered capturing? Something like this, probably. Rated T for violence and disturbing implications. Madoka Spoilers, maybe?


**LYCORIS RADIATA**

By BHS

_From an idea by THAT ASSHOLE, from jackieszanymultiverse on Tumblr_

Sasorina was beginning to think going after this one was a mistake.

True, her Heart Flower was wilted, _magnificently_ so. It would make for an exceptionally strong Desertrian. However, unlike all her other victims that she could remember, this one didn't cower in fear at the sight of her. This one didn't simply let her Heart Flower be taken.

This one, in fact, was without question the most maddeningly difficult Heart Flower the Desert Messenger had ever attempted to capture. Half a day. _Half a day_ spent chasing this little human worm all over the city, nearly laying her hands on her countless times, only to have her slip away and hide again at the last moment, over and over and over again.

To say nothing of the arsenal…

Damn it all if this one didn't actually fight back. Bullets, rockets, grenades, even homemade bombs… the girl kept pulling weapons like a human magician drawing scarves from a hat. Sasorina had long since stopped bothering to wonder how many she could possibly _have_. It was with weary resignation that she trudged on through the seemingly endless barrage, coughing up smoke and picking bullets and shrapnel out of her singed, blackened hair and clothes all the while. Not that any weak human weapon could cause her much serious harm, but it was a hell of an annoyance. _Professor Sabaku had damn well _better_ appreciate this,_ she thought to herself. "You're only delaying the inevitable, you know!" Sasorina called into the most recent smoke cloud as she waved aside the billowing curls. "It'll be far easier on you to just surrender already…!"

In the cloud, which filled most of a deserted alleyway, the faint shape of her victim moved. Sasorina braced herself to lose her target yet again, just like the last dozen or so times… but this time there was only a soft _click_, and a muffled curse from the girl. Then another _click_, and another.

Sasorina wasn't about to waste this chance, not after all the hassle this one had put her through today. Loosing her ponytail, she cast five heavy streams of her prehensile hair into the cloud at the faint shape, and was rewarded by a cry of alarm. The streams wrapped around the girl's limbs and waist and drew tight… Sasorina then felt the unmistakable tugging sensation that meant her prey was attempting to break free. A sinister leer spread across the Desert Messenger's face as she cast more streams of hair forward, binding the girl further and further under millions of strong auburn strands. No _way_ was she going to let this one go… not after today. This time, she would leave nothing to chance. She took sadistic pleasure in squeezing the girl mercilessly, and even more in the choked and strangled cry that issued from the thinning cloud. Then a horrid, burning stench… Sasorina wrinkled her nose in disgust and annoyance. So she had some kind of energy weapon in there… but it would take far more energy than _that_ to burn through her locks. Squeezing tight once more, the Desert Messenger reeled in all of her streams at once, hauling the captured girl out of the alley. "All right, all right, that's _enough!_ You're trapped, you can't escape, so just _give up_ already!"

Sasorina took a few steps back and pulled her quarry into the halo of a streetlamp. The girl was now entirely wrapped in a cocoon of her hair from the shoulders down, and one lock in particular was coiled around her neck… but still she struggled ferociously, spewing curses with every breath she could manage. "For Dune's sake," muttered Sasorina, shaking her head. "You just don't know when to quit, do you?"

Not a bad-looking human by any means, Sasorina had to admit. Even a narcissistic egomaniac like Cobraja wouldn't deny that she was a beauty. Long, sleek, midnight-black hair spilled over the girl's shoulders as she tossed her head back and forth. Her skin was very pale, though that could have been the lamp's light. Her eyes were violet and stunning, almost captivating, from the brief glimpses Sasorina caught of them. Maybe she was a little small, not too well-developed up front, but still shapely, with long, slender legs that her bindings only accentuated. She had a nice smell, too… _lilacs,_ thought Sasorina, the word floating to the forefront of her mind for no reason in particular. Frowning, she dismissed the thought; only _humans_ cared about flowers.

"Let _go_ of me, monster!" hissed Homura Akemi, livid with fury, fixing a gaze as cold as midwinter on the Desert Messenger. "You have no idea what you're-"

Grimacing, Sasorina wound the end of the coil around Homura's neck around, slapping it tightly over her mouth as a makeshift gag. "Didn't you hear me? It's _over._ I caught you, fair and square, so give up your Heart Flower like all the other humans! At least they were _quiet_ apart from the screaming, sheesh…!"

More squirming and more curses, muffled this time.

"It's really not so bad, you know." Sasorina shrugged. "It will only hurt for a second or two as I extract your Heart Flower, and then you can sleep forever."

There was then the distinct sensation of teeth gnawing at the strands over Homura's mouth. She was _biting_ her _hair…_

Sasorina's face twisted into a scowl of disgust. "Why you little _animal!_ Honestly, what do I have to _do_ to get you to settle down, break your neck?!"

Again Homura fixed Sasorina with those flawless violet eyes, working harder at the lock with her jaw and suppressing her revulsion at what she was reduced to.

Her stare actually made the Desert Messenger uneasy... she attempted to brush it off with some of the usual banter, forcing a grin. "Anyway… you shouldn't be upset. With how wilted your Heart Flower is, it'll make a spectacular Desertrian for me. A strong Desertrian means a better chance of defeating those blasted Precure, and _that_ means more Heart Flowers for the Desert Messengers!"

_Precure?_ Homura's thoughts swam with confusion. _What on Earth is a Pre-_ Her eyes widened as she realized: _magical girls_. Not Puellae Magi, but something else, something _different…_ possibly this timeline's equivalents, just as these "Desertrians" her captor crowed about were presumably the local counterparts of Witches.

Magical girls. _Precure_. If they were present here, that meant that even if she fell… there was still some small glimmer of hope. Hope that she would be saved from… from whatever would happen to her once her Heart Flower was extracted, and that she could someday continue her mission. For now, at least, it was all right to stop fighting, to meet the darkness calmly, serenely, and unafraid. She could do that much.

_Madoka,_ she thought, willing her last thought to her. _Wait for me_.

To Sasorina's surprise, the girl stopped struggling. She hung peacefully in her wrappings, not moving at all… but she kept her violet eyes locked on Sasorina, unblinking, radiant with defiance.

It was… unnerving.

Sasorina stumbled through the words somewhat as she made the familiar motions with her hands. "F-f-flower of the H-heart, _come f-forth!_"

Homura's body shrank down, down, down, into a faceted shape, a violet crystal the same color as her eyes, with a sphere attached to its lowest point. Inside the crystal hovered a wilted red spider lily… her Heart Flower, at last. Throughout the process, she made no sound.

Sasorina's inexplicable fear was forgotten as she retracted her now-empty locks back into her usual bun and gleefully snatched the crystal up. "Heh," she chuckled to the small human figure floating in a fetal position inside the attached sphere. "Serves you right for causing me all that trouble, damn human. I hope you sleep forever." Taking far too much pleasure in the act, the Desert Messenger flicked the sphere with one finger, sending it sailing off into the shadows of the dark alley. "Now then… eh?"

Something gleamed on the pavement, catching her eye. "Strange…" It was an amethyst crystal, diamond-shaped. It must have fallen from the girl's body when she transformed, she surmised. A few dark clouds swirled within its depths, but otherwise… it was strangely beautiful. Sasorina stooped to pick it up. "Hmm. I suppose this will do well enough."

Bringing the amethyst and the Heart Flower crystal close enough to touch, Sasorina bellowed: "_Desertrian, it's your-"_

_BOOM_. The Desert Messenger was launched ten meters back by a tremendous explosion. Her body hit the tarmac of the street with such force that she left a meter-long furrow in it. Knocked nearly senseless, she shook her head to clear the cobwebs and beheld her new creation…

Enormous. That was the first word that penetrated the remnants of red haze that clouded Sasorina's mind. It was far and away the _largest_ Desertrian she had ever seen, towering over her, the size of a building. Its main body was composed of two giant glass bulbs, roughly conical, balanced atop each other and connected near their peaks. Surrounding the bulbs was an ornate, curling frame that appeared to be made of pitch-black wrought iron, entwined with vines of red spider lilies and studded with amethysts identical to the one she had used to forge the creature. Each of the glass bulbs bore one of the signature Desertrian faces, which peered at her with glowing blood-red eyes. And inside those bulbs… Sasorina blinked. Inside them were not grains of sand, but countless tiny human skulls that spilled and tumbled over each other as the monster moved.

"Um…" stammered Sasorina. She was having trouble forcing her mouth to work right… whether from her impact with the tarmac or from shock at her new Desertrian's unexpectedly morbid appearance wasn't quite clear. "H-hello there…"

"_Sunadokei_," said the Desertrian. Its voice was as unusual as its form… not a bellow, but a quiet, monotone whisper that made Sasorina's skin crawl.

"Uh-huh," she said meekly, now wishing to return to the Desert Castle as quickly as possible. "So, um, if you'd like to go, you know, rampage around for a bit…"

"_No,"_ said the hourglass Desertrian, in that same eerie whisper.

Sasorina blinked. "'No?!'" Climbing unsteadily to her feet, she frowned and glared at the hourglass's faces. "What do you _mean_, 'No?!'"

"_No,_" repeated the hourglass. _"I won't."_

This… was something Sasorina hadn't planned for. A Desertrian refusing its mistress's orders? True, some of them could be a little strong-willed or unpredictable, but… "Listen here, you!" she said, jabbing a finger at it. "I'm your Mistress, got it? The beautiful Lady Sasorina_ commands_ you to rampage through this city until that girl's Heart Flower is completely withered and the whole area is a desert, got it?"

"_No,"_ said the hourglass once more. _"Madoka. I must protect Madoka. Madoka…"_

"For Dune's sake," said Sasorina, putting her face in her hands. "There's no 'Madoka' around here, but maybe if you rampage just a little bit, you'll find her, all right? So get to it!"

"_Madoka… isn't… here…"_ The slightest quiver broke the Desertrian's monotone. _"Madoka's… gone…?"_

"Gone, not here, _whatever,_" groaned Sasorina, kneading her brow in frustration. What would it _take_ to motivate this one?! "It hardly matters. Your job is to-"

The hourglass upended itself. Sasorina's words died on her lips as the world around her turned to greyscale… Attempting to demand an explanation of her Desertrian, she found that her voice was silenced completely. Not only that, but she couldn't _move_, she couldn't even blink or draw breath… Her gaze remained locked on the Desertrian standing before her. _It_ could move… its iron frame was sprouting a new growth, a tremendous six-fingered iron hand… no, a fist. A fist that it now raised above her head…

Inside her head, Sasorina screamed, flailed, pitched a fit, thrashed her arms and legs, cursed the miserable, accursed black-haired girl and the obviously insane Desertrian that her Heart Flower had produced… but on the outside, she made no sound. She was completely frozen in place, in _time_… The enormous iron fist seemed to take an eternity to descend on her…

And in that eternity, she repeated the same thought over and over: _A mistake. Going after this one was a mistake. A mistake. A mista-_

The fist fell with a thunderous crash.

The Desertrian lingered for a moment before lifting its hand. Its underside was wet and sticky. It paid that no mind.

Turning away from the newly-formed crater in the street, it stomped into the alley. It had little understanding of what it was it was looking for, all it knew was that it had to find it. Finding it was important. Perhaps Madoka would have wanted it… it didn't know.

All four of its eyes scanned the darkness, until it picked up a gleam… a small violet sphere, in which something floated, something that it couldn't make out.

That was it.

The Desertrian knew what it had to do now.

There was no need to stop time for this. It simply brought its huge, heavy foot down on the sphere and ground it into dust beneath its heel.

"_Madoka_," it said. If its creator's words were true, then Madoka was gone…

Madoka was gone…

Madoka was gone…

They had taken her away.

Which meant they had to _pay_.

_Everyone_ had to pay, until it found Madoka again.

The Desertrian's ponderous footsteps echoed through the night like the drums of hell as it advanced down the street, leveling everything in its path. All the while, it made no sound.

Everything between it and Madoka would be destroyed, turned into sand beneath its heel just like that little violet sphere, until they were together again.

_Madoka…_

**THE END**


End file.
